‘Since the Age of Elizabeth 1, the British had had global ambitions in which possession of Central America offered the prospect of opening a path between the Atlantic and Pacific’. Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America, Yale University Press, New Haven, London 2013

Spainish South America: From the time of Tudor Elizabeth 1558-1603, despite determined efforts by the Queen’s buccaneers – Sir Jack Hawkins, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh – England had failed to oust Spain from her conquered territories, strung tantalisingly along the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts of South America.

England: To fill Elizabeth’s dwindling coffers Treasury came to rely on loot taken at the point of the sword by swarms of English pirates as they hit ‘treasure ladengalleon’s en-route to Spain from Peru, Panama and Chile.

Jamaica: Phillip’s ‘secret‘ plan had it genesis in the failed 1779 San Juan Expedition the brain-child of John Dalling the military Governor of Jamaica.

Canada: In the Seven Years’ War 1756-63 Governor Dalling served under General James Wolfe. Wounded while scaling the Heights of Abraham from where the British bombarded General Joseph Montcalm’s men camped on the Plains below, Dalling was present when Britain captured Quebec from the French in 1759

No doubt driven by past glory Dalling devised a plan to attack Spanish Nicaragua. If successful he hoped to break Spain’s domination of Central and South America.

‘As for India, it had to remain a strategical back-water while Britons had their backs to the wall in so many other vital theatres. The interventions of the French navy, in the Channel, off Gibraltar, in the West Indies, off Yorktown, had clearly played a considerable part in Britain’s failure to win the war in America’. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, 3rd ed. Fontana Press, 1991

Whitehall: Despite General Cornwallis’ defeat at Yorktown October 1781 (American War of Independence 1775-1783) Lord George Germain, Secretary of State for America since November 1775 spied, from his vantage point in far-off London ‘a clear vision of victory’.

A Dictionary of British History, Secker & Warburg, edited by J.P. Kenyon.

Germain’s‘vision of victory’ was based on many factors. Among them; .’rumours Vermont would declare for the British‘ – George Washington’s Continental Army was ‘on the verge of collapse....good reason to believe that France and Spain might end their involvement in the war’. Andrew Jackson O’Shaunghnessy, The Men Who Lost America, Yale University Press, New Haven, London. 2013

Germain was wrong. Even so after Britain’s disastrous defeat at Yorktown, a smallpox epidemic, a bitter winter, shortage of ammunition and food, he urged Parliament continue a now manifestly un-winnable war.

‘Not just the Declaration of Independence but Also a Declaration That We Depend on France (and Spain Too)…Without the direct intervention of Britain’s adversaries, France and Spain, on America’s side, the colonies could not [have] hope[d] to prevail against the superior British army and navy to win their independence outright’. Larrie D. Ferreiro, Introduction, Brothers At Arms, American Independence and The Men of France and Spain Who Saved it. First Vintage Books Ed. New York, 2017

‘For the British army, fights on the Australian frontier…that war nasty and decidedly lacking in glory’. Peter Stanley, The Remote Garrison, the British Army in Australia 1788-1870, Kangaroo Press, Sydney, 1986

Britain, post the American War of Independence (1775-1783) – via the Treaty of Paris signed 3 September 1783 – lost ‘an empire in the west’ her thirteen (13) colonies; North and South Carolina, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Virginia.

‘During the period 1763 and 1793 the character of the Second British Empire was being formed…the empire of commerce in the Indian and Pacific Oceans…once more the discoveries of Captain Cook were influencing the direction of Britain’s overseas expansion’. Vincent T. Harlow, Founding of the Second British Empire 1763-1793, Vol. II, 1964.

London – 18 August 1786:Lord Sydney the Home Secretary advised Treasury; According to the accounts given by the late Captain Cook His Majesty [George 111] has thought advisable to fix upon Botany Bay’. Historical Records of New South Wales

London – 12 October, 1786: King George III ; We, reposing especial trust and confidence in your loyalty, and experience in military affairs, do, by these presents, constitute and appoint you to be said Governor of our territory called New South Wales…from the Northern extremity… Cape York…to the Southern extremity…South Cape’. His Majesty George III to our trusted and well-loved Captain Arthur Phillip, 12 October 1786.

Rio de Janeiro – 3 September 1787:‘Dear Nepean, this is my last letter, as I hope to sail tomorrow.

You know how much I was interested in the intended expedition against Monte Video [1783], and that it was said that the Spaniards had more troops than I supposed’. Arthur Phillip to Evan Nepean Under Secretary to Lord Sydney, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. 1, Parts 1 & 2.

Brazil – September 1787: As the First Fleet ‘bound for Botany Bay’ prepared to sail from Rio for New Holland via Cape Town, Captain Arthur Phillip RN ‘SailorMercenary Governor Spy’ was able to supply Evan Nepean, his long-time ‘handler’ at the Home Office, with vital information.

Skin in the game; to further understand Phillip’s ‘interest’ – not only had he drawn up Mark 1, the strategic plan for the failed Monte Video expedition, he captainedHMS Europa in the expedition under overall command of Sir Richard Kingsmill.

‘The combination of French and Spanish naval power had proven fatal for Britain in the American War 1775-1783]…as Lord Sandwich admired frankly’. Lord Sandwich cited R.J. King, The Secret History of the Convict Colony, Sydney, 1990

The Kingsmill’s squadron’s ‘failure to act’ in 1783 had robbed the Royal Navy of much needed ‘glory’. That failure rankled and Phillip was determined to make amends.

The conquest of New Holland, now Australia, would go a long way to restoring ‘lostglory’.

If Phillip succeeded he knew he would have an opportunity to prove Spain’s ‘treasure’colonies on the Pacific Coast of South America would be vulnerable to attack by the Royal Navy.

Rio – September 1787: Phillip then went on to provide Evan Nepean with up-to-date intelligence ‘obtained from a person who was there [Monte Video] all of the war[1775-1783] on the number and disposition of troops, ‘and I am certain that the account is exact’. Phillip to Nepean, 3 September 1787. Historical Records. op.cit.

New Holland – Sydney Cove 26 January 1788 was about invasion, dispossession of a Sovereign Peoples and stealing stuff.

London – 4 July 1782: Lord Sydney inherited the office of Home Secretary and a mountain of unfinished business from William Petty, Lord Shelburne. Included were the bare bones of what has become known as the Dalrymple Plan. See: Proximity not Tyranny of Distance

Whitehall – House of Commons: The Dalrymple approved by Shelburne before he succeeded Lord North as Prime Minister, aimed to launch marauding hit and run raids on Spain’s colonial territories firstly Monte Video, present-day Uruguay, then onto Buenos Aires, present-day Argentina, on the Atlantic Coast of South America.

Brazil: To design a strategy and achieve this end Lord Sydney tasked Lieutenant Arthur Phillip RN who had spent nigh on three (3) years in Brazil seconded to the Portuguese Navy.

Rio: Fluent in French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Hebrew and Portuguese, Phillip was an exceptionally effective spy. Based in Rio, he had access to a myriad of anti-Spanish dissenters ripe for rebellion.

During this term of his ‘secret service’ Phillip reported directly to fellow linguist Lord Sandwich at the Admiralty.

1783: Britain, driven by the loss of her ‘Empire in the West, the thirteen (13) American ‘middle colonies’, was determined to penetrate Spain’s colonies in South America.

‘The short term consequences of the American War of Independence] were less than many expected.Though Britain’s eclipse as a world power was confidently predicted her economic recovery was swift, and the colonial development of Australia, New Zealand India and part of Africa went some way to compensating for the loss of the first British empire’. Professor J.A.C Cannon, Oxford Companion to British History, ed. John Cannon, 1997

The establishment of a ‘Second British Empire’followed on quickly from America’s War of Independence 1775-1783.

Britain’s loss of her ‘Empire in the West’ the thirteen (13) ‘middle colonies’ – New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Carolina North and South, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island drove the invasion of New Holland and the brutal conquest of its Sovereign Peoples.

‘That the fighting against France in what was originally and essentially a European war should have spread so swiftly to the tropics was a result of many factors, most of them predicable’. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery, Fontana Press, 3rd Ed. London, 1976

Botany Bay – 1788: By the end of January 1788, after a voyage of eight (8) months by way of Spanish Tenerife, Portuguese Brazil and Dutch Cape Town, the eleven (11) ships with a complement of 1500 – 1300 men 221 – women, with approximately 50 children, were at anchor in Botany Bay. See: Botany Bay – Lord Sydney, Arthur Phillip & ‘Christopher Robin’ Mark 2

Sydney Cove: From myriad of bays and inlets Phillip chose a ‘snug’ cove deep within the vast harbour. He named it Sydney after Home Secretary Lord Sydney. By the end of January the entire fleet were anchored there.

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Sydney Cove – 7 February, 1788: ‘We have come today to take possession of this fifth great continental division of the earth on behalf of the British people. I do not doubt that this country will prove the most valuable acquisition Great Britain ever made’. Governor Arthur Phillip RN, Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol.1

The island continent of New Holland, now Australia, was seized by force of arms in 1788.

Captain-General Governor Arthur Phillip RN on the 7th of February 1788 proclaimed ‘British Sovereignty’ over New Holland from ‘Cape York in the most northern extremity to the southern extremity… South Cape’.

The First Peoples did not give consent, nor was a treaty entered into. It remains to be done.

‘To seize from its original occupants all their symbols and monuments, probably forms the most enduring injury which one group of people can inflict upon another’. C.D. Rowley, The Destruction of Aboriginal Society, Penguin, 1974

‘For a brief moment there was hope…within a matter of years violence had broken out on both sides and Phillip would now instruct raiding parties to bring back the severed heads of warriors. The birth of Australia was meant to be so different…it need not have been this way’. Stan Grant, Talking to My Country, Text Publishing, 2017

2019: So why is Australia ‘this way’ a divided nation? A white first world dominating a third world defined by colour and hue and seen by the ‘entitled’ white world as a liability. See: G is for Genocide- Colonial Breeding

‘Phillip…had instructions to deal with the ‘natives’ with ‘amity and kindness’.Professor Larissa Behrendt, The Honest History Book, – Invasion or Settlement, NewSouth Press, 2017

What went so wrong with the deal; ‘within a generation the heads of Aborigines were shipped to Britain in glass cases to be studied as relics of a doomed race’. Grant. ibid.

London: In 1838 a Select Committee of the British Parliament; ‘On the subject of the Aborigines of New Holland…It is impossible to contemplate the condition or the prospects of that unfortunate race without the deepest commiseration. Lord John Russell to [Governor] Sir George Gipps, 21 December, 1838. Historical Records of New South Wales Vol.1

So what flipped the switch from ‘amity and kindness’ to ‘nasty’ creeping frontier wars that by 1838 had brought about the near destruction of ‘that unfortunate race…the Aborigines of New Holland’?

Two (2) First Nations’ authors, Stan Grant and Larissa Behrendt, have honed in on a critical pinch-point that occurred in the first decade of Britain’s occupation of New Holland.

Although ‘amity kindness’ were the ‘weasel-words’of their day, both Behrendt and Grant are satisfied Governor Phillip took the concept seriously. That was until December 1790 when Phillip’s absolute loyalty to ‘King and Country’ trumped ‘amity and kindness’.